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From abaca fiber to Zinc White and everything in between, more than one thousand art definitions and descriptions are detailed here for your benefit. Including every art term, technique and material used by the practicing artist, this unique reference is packed with hundreds of photographs, paintings, mini-demos, black & white diagrams and drawings for comprehensive explanation.
To ensure that you receive the most current and the most practical information available, each entry is based on contemporary usage culled from a variety of sources.
You’ll also find sidebars about specific entries and charts for a wealth of interrelated information in one convenient listing. For example, when you look up the definition of “art movement,” you get not only the meaning, but a comprehensive chart listing each individual movement, style and school along with its approximate time period and insightful description.
The Artist’s Illustrated Encyclopedia will soon become your most prized artistic reference—supplying the illustrated world of art in one definitive volume.
From the Introduction
If you prefer a world where everything is black and white with no gray, you may sometimes be frustrated by definitions of things in the art world. Many terms are defined one way by one "expert" and another way by someone else who is equally qualified. Sometimes this happens because over long time periods language changes; sometimes it's because a popular book includes an error that never gets corrected and consequently becomes part of the lore; and often it's because someone with some sort of axe to grind--a manufacturer, perhaps?--throws out a new definition. In this encyclopedia I have tried to go with definitions that make sense in contemporary usage, indicating here and there older, no-longer-used definitions. I have tried to alert the reader to definitions that are suspect. In defining "Not" paper, for example, I conclude that there are so many competing definitions that the word is quite useless--so why use it? In all cases I have gone to more than a single source for my information. While this does not necessarily put the stamp of absolute authority on a definition, it guarantees, I think, that what you read here will be current and practical.
--Phil Metzger
About the Author
For over twenty years, Phil Metzger has exhibited his paintings in national and regional shows and has sold his work through galleries and street art fairs. He is the author of six art instruction books including Perspective Without Pain, Enliven Your Paintings With Light, The North Light Artist’s Guide to Materials & Techniques and Realistic Collage Step by Step (co-authored with Michael David Brown).
Some examples of the definitions from inside:
# Collotype: A reproduction created using a photomechanical process when excellent fidelity is required. A plate is coated with light-sensitive gelatin and a photographic negative is placed on top of it. Light passing through the negative causes the gelatin to harden in proportion to the amount of light getting through. The hardened areas, after certain treatments, accept ink, again in proportion to the amount of light that got through to each area. From the plate a limited number of reproductions (usually a few thousand) may be printed. This process is also called photocollography.
# Gouache: Opaque watercolor. Like watercolor, gouache contains a gum binder and ingredients such as sugars and glycerin to improve the paint's handling characteristics. Unlike watercolor, gouache paints contain an added ingredient such as precipitated chalk or blanc fixe to make the paint opaque. See water-based paints compared;blanc fixe; precipitated chalk.
# Paper Grain: 1)A discernable texture in some papers showing faint lines in one direction or another. See wove;laid. 2)In machine-made paper, the direction in which most of the fibers are aligned. Such papers tear more easily in the direction of the grain than across the grain.
# Scumbling: Rubbing or scrubbing a thin layer of opaque or semiopaque paint over a dry existing area to achieve textural or atmospheric effects or to raise the key of a dark colored area. For example, landscape painters in oil often rework a dried painting to achieve the effect of atmospheric perspective by thinly rubbing a mixture of white and blue pigment over the distant planes and details. This scumble provides an effective illusion of haze and distance. Similarly, painters scumble flesh tones over a dark neutral underpainting to produce cool translucent halftones, a practice beautifully employed by the great Venetian painters Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto.
# Warping: Twisting or unevenness in a surface that is usually flat. When using water-based paints on stuff surfaces such as hardboards, illustration boards and watercolor boards, it's common for the board to bow convexly (upward) toward the wet side. That's because the fibers on the wet side expand while the fibers on the dry side do not. The remedy is usually to wet both sides more or less equally to begin with. If a board still has a bulge after drying, turn it over and wet the concave side evenly until the bulge disappears. If the painting is on the concave side, you can still wet it, but take sensible precautions not to disturb the painting--for a watercolor, for instance, use a sprayer rather than a brush or sponge. Bear in mind, though, that spraying, even with plain water, can leave faint spottiness on the picture. |
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